


You Can Sit on Chimneys

by Qpenguin98



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication, Post-Season/Series 01, Projection, Self-Hatred, but just like a little bit, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 21:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19304041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: Matt isn’t really sure when he started wanting Foggy to hate him, but he’s fairly certain that’s what the mess of feelings in his head is about.





	You Can Sit on Chimneys

Matt isn’t really sure when he started wanting Foggy to hate him, but he’s fairly certain that’s what the mess of feelings in his head is about. It’s not even that he wants him to hate him, per say, just that he’d be justified in it. So much so that Matt’s surprised they’re still friends. He may have lied to him for good reason, but he still did lie to him about pretty much everything for the entire time they’ve known each other.

Deep down, he knows that Foggy probably isn’t leaving, that he’s in it for the long haul, regardless of how much he hates Matt’s extracurricular activities. It doesn’t change what his head tells him, but it’s something to cling to when the idea of losing him gets a little too serious for him to handle.

He keeps track of Foggy in the office, of how he moves, the cadence of his voice. Less of his heartbeat after his reaction to it having been listened to, but it’s still there in the background. He doesn’t seem guarded at all around Matt, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Foggy can be very good at masking his emotions from people. Not really from him, since he’s got a built in lie detector, but he’s gotten better since learning about it.

There are times though, times Matt comes to work a bit more than his usual roughed up, if the edges of bruises extend past his shirt collar and give away too much of what could’ve happened the night before, that he feels what has to be resentment. There’s no other name he can put to it. This kind of still anger that settles in his jaw and stays there the rest of the day, swelling up every time he looks at him. It’s not unfounded, though it gets a bit annoying, how snappish he can get so quickly when he realizes he’s been left out of the loop on an injury or major fight.

Part of Matt wants to get angry, to circle back around to their fight and bring up all the points he could have made had he not been half dead on the couch and thrown unprepared into a conversation he never meant to have. He wants to shout and get it into his brain that this is what he does, this is who he is, and if he can’t handle that he can go.

The other part of him relishes in it, soaks in the closest Foggy’s going to get to leaving him for good. He wants what he knows are side glances and tensed shoulders and short comments on his state for the day because it means there’s some part, just a little bit of him that hates Matt just the way he wants him to. That he resents the fact that he stayed after that fight, that that was the time to leave and he missed his chance so now he’s stuck with him until the end.

It’s probably not the best thing for him to wish for, for his best friend to hate him and hate their friendship for however much longer it lasts, but he can’t help it. It’s such a faraway option that it must make it a little better to imagine. Mustn’t it?

Idly, he wonders if getting himself hurt worse more often will expedite the process, but he throws that thought away pretty quickly. He doesn’t actually enjoy getting hurt, despite what Claire and Foggy thing, and he’d rather not have half stitched injuries all over his body just to prove a point to himself. He has standards, however low they are.

Distantly, he understands this train of thought is stemming from something he’s probably been dealing with longer than he’s known Foggy, but it’s rare that he acknowledges the imperfections in his brain so directly, so he’ll ignore it and go back to imagining scenarios where he finally gets fed up enough and hates him the way they both have to know is the endgame.

\---

“Do you think it’s wrong to want a person to hate you, Father?”

He’s sitting a pew behind Father Lantom, holding his cane loosely in his hands, just for something to hold onto. Father Lantom, already half looking at him, turns around the rest of the way to get a good look at his face after he speaks.

“Is this a question for your nighttime activities or for your personal life?” He asks, considering the question.

“Both, I suppose,” he says, because they’re all too entangled to really pull apart enough for an answer.

“Ah, someone connected to both,” he says, shifting into a more comfortable position. Matt shifts his cane from majority one hand to the other as he waits for the answer. “I guess that all depends on why. Have you done something you think warrants it?”

“Yes and no,” he answers honestly. “There are reasons he should be upset with me, but we’re moving past it. Part of me wants to be upset with him for his reactions, but the other part… it’s more complicated.”

“It seems like he’s moving past it more than you are. Be honest with yourself, is this more of a him issue or a you issue?”

“Oh, a me issue for sure,” Matt says, lips curling. “It’s never really been a him issue. His reaction was justified, and I’ve known that from the beginning. It’s more of an issue of me not thinking he’s taken enough action about it.”

“You think there should’ve been more than whatever happened?” Lantom asks, and Matt can hear his heartbeat spike a bit. “How long’s it been?”

“A few months.”

“Hm.” Matt sits up a bit straighter, shifts in his seat, twists the cane in his hands. “Have you talked to him about this?”

“No. He’d get upset that I think he’s not reacted enough or harsh enough, and it would all spiral from there.”

“I think he deserves to know your worries. Whoever he is seems fairly important to you, and I think the same is true in reverse. I’m sure he’d want to know you ‘want him to hate you.’ That’s a pretty big wedge in a relationship.”

“Mm,” is all Matt says in response. He’ll consider it, but he knows he won’t act on it.

“Or, you could just let it fester and blow up in both of your faces at a later time that’s not really appropriate for either of you?”

“That sounds more likely,” he says lightly, and Father Lantom snorts.

“Why would I expect anything less?”

Matt sits a little less rigidly and tips his head back, inhaling slowly.

“To answer your question, no. I don’t think it’s wrong. I think it can become a bit uncontrollable, especially in the situation you find yourself in, but wanting someone to hate you is a little different than hating someone else. It’s certainly a reflection your thoughts on yourself, but that’s not exactly a sin.”

“Not really cleared on the sin counter, Father.”

“And that’s what this is for, isn’t it?” He asks jokingly. “Confessional rules still apply, after all.”

Matt smiles and tips his head back down. He grabs the cane a little firmer and stands. “Thank you for listening, Father, but I should get going.”

“Take care of yourself,” Matt listens as he stands. “I mean it this time.”

“Does that make every other time just courtesy?”

“Not quite.”

Matt raises a hand as a wave and steps out of the pew and into the aisle, cane in front of him, listening as Father Lantom stands there a bit longer before turning to return to his duties.

It wasn’t exactly what he wanted as an answer, but it’s better than he thought he’d get.

\---

“What exactly did you think my reaction would be?” Foggy asks him, voice sharp. “’Oh gee Matt, you’ve lied to me our whole friendship and also you’re the Man in the Mask but that’s all good because we’re best friends?’”

“I don’t know,” he says, because he can’t say anything else.

“Do you understand how big of a secret that is to keep? My partner in law and best friend of like five years goes out and kicks supposed bad guys’ asses and chooses who the bad guys are with no input from law enforcement? That’s a little much, Matt! Especially since you don’t seem to have any self preservation left in you. What exactly do you think it looks like when the blind guy shows up everywhere with bruises all over him? The answer is not good.”

He’s silent, tongue locked up in his mouth, jaw wired shut. Foggy’s breathing is erratic, heartbeat elevated, and his hands keep clenching into fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms.

And then a knock comes at his office door and he snaps to attention, hand jumping up and hitting the underside of his desk. The door opens and Foggy pops the top half of his body into the room.

“You alright?”

“What?” He asks, tilting his head.

“It’s been a minute since Karen and I heard from you. Door’s been closed for a while and you haven’t said anything.”

“Oh,” he says, shaking out his hand from where he’d hit it. “Yeah. I’m fine, just got lost in thought for a while. Sorry, I should’ve been keeping better track of the time.”

Foggy’s heartrate elevates and Matt can’t fathom why. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, Foggy. I’m fine. I honestly just lost track of things for a minute.”

Foggy stares at him for a minute and bites on his cheek. “Yeah, alright. Do you want me to close the door or leave it open?”

“Open,” he says, because maybe he’ll actually be able to focus hearing the real Foggy across the office.

“Okay,” Foggy says, dipping back out a bit. “Holler if you need anything, I guess?”

“Will do,” he assures and Foggy waves him off, sliding the rest of the way out of his office and back into the main part of their firm.

Unfortunate, he thinks, that this is getting distracting at work. Imagining conversations that aren’t going to happen because they’ve already hashed it all out. He wonders how it would go if they had that talk again, if Matt’s responses would be any faster, any more coherent. Probably not. He’s always been quick to anger and bad at explaining himself. It’s a horrible mix, especially for this.

He’s not sure how to rectify this problem. Talking, like Father Lantom said, can only make things worse. They haven’t talked about any of it since their fight and it’s been going great. Better than great. It’s all Matt’s problems making things worse again. There’s a way to fix this, he just needs to figure out what it is and then things will go back to whatever normal they have left.

Foggy doesn’t hate him, he tells himself before getting back to work.

The thought is disappointing.

\---

If he doesn’t get up, he doesn’t have to deal with his issues, and if he doesn’t have to deal with his issues, they aren’t real.

His bed is so comfortable, and if he never leaves it, he never has to face the world.

A fools dream, really, as his alarm blares him more aware of his surroundings. He smacks it half heartedly with his hand and covers his eyes with his arm. He could just not get up, but that would cause more problems than it would solve. It wouldn’t even solve anything, it would just succeed in making him feel worse and do nothing to get him out of the rut he’s thrown himself into.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, swaying in place for a minute before moving. Shower, brush teeth, get dressed. Breakfast if he can spare the time and energy, coffee on the way to work if he can’t.

He brushes his teeth in the shower just to save on time and the effort of getting the toothbrush ready separately from him utilitarianly scrubbing shampoo into his hair. He squeezes his hair dry, buttons the cuffs of his shirt, grabs a banana and gets halfway through before realizing he can’t stomach the rest of it. His brain is fuzzy and his chest feels heavy and ah, damn. He wasn’t supposed to get this swung into the low, but it’s here and he’s in it.

He gets a coffee on the way to work.

Matt cuts it close, but he gets to work on time, three minutes to spare. He can feel Foggy looking at him as he walks in. He knows he’s usually prompt, at least fifteen minutes early, but it’s been a morning already and he’s not going to go out of his way to get into that conversation.

“There’s more coffee if you need more after that one,” Karen offers, also giving him a once over. “You look like you might need it.”

“Thank you,” he says, and tries to put as much feeling behind it as he can. There isn’t much. “Late night.”

Foggy’s heartrate picks up and he knows he’s getting a more in depth once over. There shouldn’t be anything for him to find, it wasn’t actually much of a late night at all. Some petty thieves, a few would be assaults. Nothing he can’t handle. It’s been a quiet week, or he hasn’t been listening as much as he should. That’s a concern, but he thinks he’s right in it being quiet. Something big is coming soon, he’s sure of it. He’ll have to keep an ear out, make sure no plans are happening in the daylight on street corners. It’s more common that he would think.

“What kept you up?” Karen asks.

“Just couldn’t get to sleep. Happens sometimes. Just have to make up for it with coffee the next morning.”

“Well there’s plenty to go around,” she tells him, smiling. He smiles back at her, raising his cup.

“I’ll make sure to take advantage of it,” he says, and he goes to drop his stuff off in his office before getting to work.

Foggy waits longer than he expected him to before coming into his office and shutting the door.

“Late night?”

“It wasn’t that late,” he says. “I’m fine, Foggy.”

“That can mean a lot of things, usually that you’re not but you’re not going to tell me.”

“You going to lawyer me into telling you I’m just tired?”

“Mostly I was going to lawyer you into talking about your extracurriculars, but sure, if that’s what you want to call it we’ll go with that.”

Annoyance flares in the back of his mind and he sets his shoulders. “I meant what I said, Foggy. It’s been quiet, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine. I know you already checked what you can see, so I can tell you there’s nothing but a bruise on my side. I’m not lying to you.”

“hard to tell sometimes,” he says under his breath.

“Is it?” he asks calmly. “Do you think everything I tell you is a lie?”

“If it involves your wellbeing then honestly I couldn’t tell you.”

There it is. He still thinks he’s keeping things from him. Even though he knows that Matt never meant to keep anything from him. Interesting. Is solidifies one idea he had about whatever they’ve got left of their friendship.

“I haven’t lied to you once since I told you everything. You know that. I know you know that. I answer your questions, and you think I’d get hung up on a ‘late night?’ I know you don’t trust me, but that’s a bit much even for you.”

“I trust you,” Foggy says, crossing his arms, confusion coloring his voice. As if he doesn’t know what Matt’s talking about. “What even— that’s not what this! I just wanna make sure you don’t need to go to a hospital because I know you won’t tell me that. Not to be rude, but you look kind of like shit today. Wasn’t sure if it’d been a rough night or not. Sorry for asking.”

His breath catches, and then that’s it. The annoyance is gone, with all it’s backing anger. He’s left with a pretty sizable blankness in his brain and he sits there silently for a while.

“What are you waiting for here,” Foggy asks flatly.

“Nothing,” he says honestly. He can hear the disdain, that underlying resentment in his voice. “Just… nothing. I really am just tired, Foggy.”

His whole body feels exhausted, and he wonders if it wouldn’t have been better if he’d stayed in bed today. Foggy considers him and, blessedly, relents.

“Fine. If it’s more than that, I’m here. Just don’t get all you about it.”

He leaves, then, and Matt has exactly no idea what that last comment meant. Did he mean not to keep it bottled up? Or not to get weird and upset about asking for help? Or a mixture. Or something completely different? He’d love to know.

Instead, he gets back to work, taking a drink of the too cold coffee and trying to focus his brain as best he can.

It doesn’t work too well.

\---

“Oh, do you need help?” Foggy asks him, sneer present in his words. “Why would I help you?”

“What exactly do you think our relationship is? I come back to being your friend every time you fuck something up worse? That’s not how friendships work, Matt. There’s a bit more of a two way street. You don’t get to use me as your secret keeper and sole confidant and dip for your Devil gig when I need you too.”

Matt can’t move, doesn’t think he’s breathing either, but Foggy doesn’t do anything more than scoff, turning his head a bit.

“Pathetic. Really, Matt, you can’t breathe and there’s nothing happening to you? Please, get it together. Do you really think I can drop everything and come get you whenever you need it? I have a life separate from yours. Separate from that Daredevil bullshit. Because that’s what it is, bullshit. You know it. I know it. Why do you think I should stick around?”

One, short breath of air pulls into his lungs and then he’s back, and it’s almost worse, this half choking, not knowing when the air will come.

“Why should I?” Foggy waits, and Matt opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. “Exactly. You don’t have an answer either.”

He turns away and then he’s not Foggy anymore, he’s Stick. He’s Stick and Matt feels too young for this body, still choking on nothing.

“You get too attached, kid. Never shoulda let it get so far.”

He drops the wrapper on the ground and turns all the way away and Matt wakes up.

It’s a regular thing, too. No gasping for air, even considering the theme of the dream. Nightmare. Dream? His eyes open and he stares at nothing, breathing in slowly.

There’s layers to it then.

God he fucking hates layers.

His heart’s in his throat, but he isn’t really feeling anything at the same time. Checking the time gets him five thirty seven, not enough time to warrant going back to sleep or going out and patrolling. He lies awake and contemplates his options before sighing and getting up. At least he’ll be early to work today.

\---

It’s seven in the evening and Matt is standing outside of his door because someone is in his apartment. It caught him off guard, but why should it really? People just come into his home whenever they want and expect him to be fine with it, so why should this be any different.

He has to bags of groceries and he’d really just like to make himself dinner before he goes out for the night, but the person in his apartment apparently has other plans. They’re not even hiding, just sitting on the couch, fidgeting.

With that description it can only really be one person, but he doesn’t confirm it until he opens the door.

“Why are you in my apartment, Foggy?” He asks, closing the door behind him and dropping the keys on the counter when he enters the main room.

“Jesus Christ,” Foggy says, jumping, heartrate jumping up high. “I kinda hate that you can do that and I still have no clue when you’ll be here.”

Matt raises an eyebrow at him before turning to put groceries away.

“Glad you’re not out patrolling. I got a little worried there that I’d be waiting here until like three in the morning, and I don’t think I can commit to that on a Thursday.”

“Again,” Matt says, pulling out a pot and the rice he just got. “Why are you here?”

“Right,” Foggy says, and he slows down a bit, less fast talking, less off the walls. “I just, uh, I mean come on, don’t you know?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he says tiredly. “I can’t read your mind and you know that.”

“I know _that_ ,” he says, like it’s obvious with what he just said. “I just mean by context clues. You’re usually excellent at those. I guess, excellent with everyone but yourself. You never really seem to pick up on them then.”

He doesn’t grant that a response and Foggy chews on his cheek again.

“You’ve been off recently, and I know you won’t talk about it at work, and it’s hard to get you to commit to Josie’s these days, and I’m pretty sure you’re telling the truth about not getting beat to shit every night, so I’m here to figure out what’s wrong.”

“I already told you nothing’s wrong,” he says, pouring the rice into the pan and then the water. He sets it to cook and sets to slicing up some vegetables and meat. He’s making double now, since Foggy’s here and doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. “I meant it.”

“Yeah well you always mean it and we both know you’re not always telling the truth to either of us, so let’s be real. You tell me what’s wrong and we fix it. It’s pretty simple.”

It is not, in any way, that simple. Part of it is. Foggy’s dealt with him having a depressive episode, loathe as he is to call them that, and he knows how Matt works in them, and how he doesn’t. He has not dealt with Matt wanting him to hate him for everything he’s been talking about. That is not something either of them are equipped to deal with.

“I’m just tired, Foggy.”

“Tired or _tired_?”

“Second one,” he says, deciding to quicken this conversation. If he admits to one thing, he gets out of another.

“Kinda figured. You get really… slumpy? That’s not even a word with a definition, but it’s what you get. Act like no one can tell. We’ve been best friends for five years, Matt. I can tell when things are wrong.”

He pauses before continuing.

“And I know that’s not it.”

Matt curses everything, including himself. Him and his stupid tells. Obviously Foggy would be able to see through his ‘just depressed’ bullshit. He has no idea what to do with that.”

“No clue what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do. It’s been weird for a few months now, and you getting into a depressive episode is pretty recent within the past couple weeks. You think I don’t know you? Pretty sure I know you better than I know myself at this point.”

Same here, Matt thinks to himself, stirring the pan of vegetables and chicken. Easy meal. He wishes he’d done something more complex to focus on cooking for longer.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says instead. “Things have just been settling.”

“Pretty sure things settled once Fisk got put away, but if that’s just me let me know. We figured it out, Matt. So let’s figure out whatever this is.”

“More complicated than that,” he says, resolutely not looking at him. He can still sense the things Foggy is doing, it just makes it so he can’t see his face.

“Dunno how it could be any more complicated than me figuring out you beat people up in the middle of the night and you have super powered senses, but lay it on me.”

“They’re not super powers.”

“Ah ah, I said super powered, not super powers. I know you heard me. Now stop deflecting and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Do you ever wonder if you made the wrong choice?” He says it because apparently he has no way out and Foggy is determined to make this conversation happen.

“About?”

“This. Us. Whatever it was that happened there, where we worked together but never spoke. If that wasn’t the right choice.”

Foggy’s quiet, but his heart his hammering along. Matt doesn’t add anything, doesn’t want to clarify any further.

“I…” Foggy starts, pausing to gather himself. “I can’t tell if this is you trying to break the news that you don’t want to be friends anymore nicely but failing really bad at it or if you really overestimate how long I can hold a grudge.”

“Whichever one you want it to be,” Matt says, and it curls something nasty inside of him, something that hurts more than he expected.

“Wow, okay, you’re terrible at this.”

“At what?”

“Getting to you point. I know you’re not friend breaking up with me because you’d be much less beat around the bush about it, but Jesus, Matt, warn a guy before you say that shit.”

He keeps his head turned at the pan, turning it off. His rice isn’t ready yet, so he has time before he’s forced to turn around.

“So you think I made the wrong choice in continuing to be your friend after all the shit went down, but you won’t tell me why you think that?”

He continues staring, for lack of a better word, at the pan.

“Right, of course, because Matt Murdock never makes things easy. Alright. I’m gonna shoot out guesses and figure out why it is you think I shouldn’t be your friend. Here we go.” He takes a deep breath. “You think I should’ve broken off ties immediately? Nah, you’re too much of a masochist for that. Youuuuu found another best friend in the time we had a rough patch and’ve been afraid of breaking the news to me? Absolutely not, you can’t keep secrets for shit, including Daredevil.”

He smiles a bit into the pan of food, listening to the rice cook and to Foggy’s heart go through a series of jumps as he strategizes.

“You think I should’ve been harsher in my judgement?”

Matt’s hand tightens on the spatula and Foggy makes a noise. “Alright, we’re onto something there. Let’s see. You _do_ think I should’ve cut things off but not right away because I wouldn’t have enough time to mull it all over?”

The rice finishes and Matt turns the stove off, gritting his teeth together and grabbing a spoon.

“Still on the right track. Jeez, Matt, you could just say what you’re wanting me to do here, it would save a lot of time.”

“More fun this way. Get to see what you think I think like.”

“Okay, I know what you think like. I know you’re way too harsh on yourself, so when you get everything together it gets pretty easy to figure it all out. All I need to do it figure out what—”

He stops himself, swallowing, heart skipping around. Matt pulls out two plates. 

“You think I should hate you, because you’re like that, and because it makes sense in your head according to how I reacted.”

“I made dinner,” he says instead of confirming. Foggy already knows he’s right. “Figured you’d want some.”

“Matt.”

“What? It’s rice and stir fry. Not like I can mess this one up.”

“Matty, come on,” he says, and his voice is thick, sticky in his throat. Matt closes his eyes and closes his jaw tight enough to ache. He dishes them both up food anyway. It’s better with food. Or it’s supposed to be. People always make food for hard conversations.

“You know it’s not you,” Matt tells him as he rests his body on the edge of the couch, not quite within Foggy’s proximity. He hands him his plate, which he hears get placed on the table pretty quickly.

“I don’t hate you. You have to know that.” His voice is quiet, all of the joking he was doing a minute ago gone.

“I know,” he says, because he does. “I do. Just under all the irrational brain stuff. You know how it is.”

“Matt,” he says, voice cracking. “I wouldn’t be here is I did. I wouldn’t be at the firm. We wouldn’t still be talking.”

“And yet,” Matt says.

“’And yet’ what,” he snaps out. “There isn’t an and yet, Murdock. I’m your friend. I’m not going to stop being your friend over some secrets we figured out months ago.”

“They aren’t really figured out, is the problem.” He takes a bit of food to stall, to think of his next words. “You still don’t trust me to tell you the truth on whether I’m hurt or not. I thought we figured that out that day, but I guess not.”

“That’s not me not trusting you, you idiot, it’s me knowing you downplay things and making sure you’re okay. I’ve known you a long time, I know you try to tell everyone things are better than they are, because then maybe it’ll be true. I’m not a total dumbass. I trust you, or I wouldn’t be as not vocal about your Daredevilling.”

“Not vocal.” He says, snorting. “Maybe not v—”

He realizes he’s about to say not vocally, and that that’s the whole point. Foggy’s stemmed his reactions to it to purely bodily, and not even overt body reactions. Heartbeats, muscle ticks, tensions of his jaw and his hands and things he shouldn’t be able to tell.

“You thinking my reactions are big is your own damn senses’ fault. I keep them small for a reason. I care about you, idiot. I worry about you, and I know you hate it, so I do my best not to do it loud. I know you’re a walking lie detector and all, but that’s not my problem. I can’t keep you from hearing that, but I can keep you from hearing how I feel about you getting beat up every night.”

“You get angry,” Matt says, grasping for strings at this point. “When I come to work hurt. “You get mad about it. You said it yourself about the lie detector thing.”

“I’m not mad at you,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “Or maybe I am. I don’t know. But I’m allowed to be. I’m allowed to be mad that you throw yourself into danger every night and come to your actual work covered in bruises and stitches like it’s not a big deal. It’s a big deal, Matt. To me, and it would be to Karen. I care about you and I worry about you and when I see that I actually have to be worried it makes me stressed and angry, which you should be able to figure out, but you’re so focused on wanting me to hate you that you can’t even see past that.”

“You should,” he says weakly after a long pause. “I lied to you. For years. Our entire friendship, built on lies. You should hate me. It’s only reasonable.”

“For fuck’s sake, Matt, what do I have to say to get it into your head that I’m not leaving? I know you’ve got Tragic Orphan Syndrome where you think everyone’s gonna leave you but I’m not. I’m not leaving. I’m in it for the long haul, alright? I decided. I kinda thought you decided on that to, but I guess I have to get you on board with out fucking friendship. I love you, jackass. You mean a lot to me. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not letting you go anywhere either, whether you think you deserve it or not.”

Matt’s silent. He doesn’t have any counter arguments left, used them all up. Foggy absolutely refuses to hate him, to leave after everything, and he should be jumping for joy or whatever it is people do when they’re happy, but he’s mostly having a hard time processing. He sets his plate down on the table because his appetite is gone and he’s a little worried about dropping it at this point. There’s too much tension in his hands and he fists them at his sides. Foggy sighs from his spot on the couch.

“I broke you didn’t I. I knew it. You got way too convinced you were right and now it’s fucking with perception of our whole thing, huh?”

He presses his lips thin and Foggy makes a noise of assent. “Yup, exactly what I thought. Come on, get on the couch all the way. Let’s go.”

Matt hates whatever tone Foggy has going on but he complies, mostly because standing is making air a little hard and he’d like to breathe, please and thank you. Foggy grabs him around his shoulder and pulls him into a hug that he very much isn’t prepared for, though he should’ve been, and it takes him a second to untense his body, to let himself relax.

“You’re my best friend, okay? You coming clean about some stuff that probably should’ve been said way earlier on isn’t going to mess everything up. Even if I did kind of force your hand by walking in on you actively dying. That one’s on me. But the not telling is definitely on you.”

Matt laughs and it feels watery. Foggy rests his chin on top of his head and sighs. “Like, I probably should’ve expected this, knowing you and all. This is how you handle everything. Bottling it all up until it blows up in your face like this. This could’ve been handled way sooner, bud, with less of you having a total breakdown over the fact that I don’t, in fact, hate you.”

“Figured it’d just be better for everyone involved if I didn’t,” he says hoarsely. He’s not really feeling anything, but he’s feeling it all very strongly at the same time.

“Course you did. You’re Matt Murdock, terrible at feelings and worse at talking about stuff. You’re just lucky I know how you do shit well enough to know you weren’t really doing too hot.”

“Thanks,” he says quietly.

“Anytime,” Foggy says. “And I mean that. Anytime you’re feeling like shit I’m here for you. Probably you won’t use me for my excellent feelings and talking about stuff skills, but they’re here for you to use.”

“I’ll probably take you up sometime.”

“The best thing you’ve said all night. How long you wanna wallow?”

“I’m not wallowing,” he says indignantly. And then, “A few more minutes.”

“Cool,” Foggy says, settling in. “Wallowing time, here we come.”

When he’s done wallowing, he pulls back and Foggy grabs his lukewarm plate of dinner. “Cold stir fry is never as bad as I expect. All the flavors are there, just a little less hot.”

Matt gabs his plate and takes a few pointed bits before giving up on it again and sinking into the couch. Foggy finishes up and follows suit, letting out a bigger sigh that turns into a yawn. It’s later than it was, and Matt’s honestly exhausted. He should go out and patrol, and he probably will later, but for now he’s here.

“Seriously though, are you okay?”

“Better,” he says, the first honest statement about himself he’s made in days. “Still not a hundred percent, but better.”

“Oh good. I was worried we’d have to do another one of these tomorrow, and I definitely already have plans to worry about you as you parkour off of roofs and save little old ladies from robbers.”

“There are less little old ladies around in the middle of the night Foggy.”

“Fine, stopping wild old ladies from their evil plans. That one has to have some weight, right?”

“A little more than the little old lady robberies, yeah.”

“Good. Any particularly wild ones recently?”

He tells him about this older lady that decided she was going to be the next leader of the city, but hadn’t really planned it all out and just kept siccing her grandsons and particularly nefarious cards club on people to try and get a foothold in the crime scene.

“It didn’t work out very well.”

“God, I don’t want to imagine you in a fist fight with someone’s grandma, that’s just sinister,” he jokes.

“Anymore sinister than you purposefully avoiding the peppers in that stir fry?”

“You know I don’t like bell peppers. They add a weird texture. The flavor is fine, but the texture’s bad. We’ve known each other for this long and you still give me peppers.”

“You never complain, just pick around them! How am I, Blind Matt Murdock, supposed to know?”

“Ooh, you sneaky asshole, I didn’t know how you knew I didn’t like them, but now I do and that’s just on the list of things college me would’ve loved to know about.”

He grins. “College you would’ve loved to know about everything.”

“That’s cause college me was an optimist. I still wanna know everything, just with less enthusiasm.”

This is comfortable. This is normal, a stark contrast to what he’s been trying to force himself to believe is normal. This is Foggy, his best friend, who’s not leaving anytime soon, ever if he can help it. He loves him, he’s staying, and he cares and Matt’s just going to have to come to terms with that.

“More of an optimist than me,” he tells him.

“Oh obviously,” Foggy says. “I don’t know who could be less of an optimist than you.”

That’s just fine by him.

**Author's Note:**

> well, i guess i just write for everything now  
> yall know i havent watched past the third ep of season two, but i do know all the spoilers and am pointedly ignoring the end of season two's for this fic. i will create the friendship comfort i want in the world so help me god  
> please comment if you liked!


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